RCU Forums - View Single Post - VK Model's Nieuport 17, kit from 1972!
View Single Post
Old 11-15-2016, 12:45 PM
  #60  
otrcman
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Arroyo Grande, CA
Posts: 743
Likes: 0
Received 5 Likes on 5 Posts
Default

Out of curiosity, I just now calculated the reduction in mass moment of inertia for a typical scale model to help illustrate why scale models are so twitchy.

For a 1/6 scale model weighing somewhere in the range that we would typically fly, the mass moment of inertia in any one axis is approximately 1 / 8,000 of the full scale prototype. The reason for this drastic reduction is that the inertia scaling effect is a fifth order variable.

That's why these models ground loop in the blink of an eye.

Dick